A California appeals court on Tuesday rejected former television actor Danny Masterson's bid to overturn his 2023 rape convictions, affirming the 30-years-to-life state prison sentence handed down in Los Angeles. In an 89-page unpublished opinion issued on October 27, 2026, a three-justice panel from California's Second District Court of Appeal dismissed arguments from Masterson's legal team that testimony regarding the Church of Scientology violated his constitutional rights and tainted his criminal trials.

According to Variety, the appellate panel systematically turned down each of the defense's challenges, concluding that Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Charlaine Olmedo did not abuse her judicial discretion or exhibit bias during the high-profile proceedings. The decision keeps the 50-year-old former star of That '70s Show behind bars, where he remains ineligible for parole until 2042, according to Deadline.

Why the Court Upheld the Scientology Testimony

A central pillar of Masterson's appeal focused on the inclusion of extensive testimony and evidence surrounding the Church of Scientology during his 2022 mistrial and subsequent 2023 retrial. Masterson and both women he was convicted of assaulting were members of the organization at the time the attacks took place at his Hollywood Hills home in 2003, though the victims later left the church.

During the trial, Judge Olmedo permitted a former Scientology official to take the stand as an expert witness regarding the organization's internal practices. Prosecutors argued this context was necessary to explain why the victims—identified in court records as Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2, or by the initials J.B. and N.T.—delayed reporting the assaults to the Los Angeles Police Department. In trial testimony and depositions, the women stated that church officials warned them against contacting secular law enforcement under the threat of expulsion from the Scientology community and complete disconnection from their families.

Masterson's appellate attorneys argued that allowing this testimony, along with a series of remarks and evidentiary rulings by Judge Olmedo, intruded into the interpretation of religious doctrine and infringed upon the actor's First Amendment rights. However, the three-justice appellate panel found no constitutional violation.

"The jury in this case was not asked to determine the truth or falsity of Scientology doctrine or beliefs," the panel wrote in the ruling, as reported by NBC Los Angeles. "Admission of Scientology evidence for those purposes did not contravene the First Amendment."

The justices noted that the church-related evidence was strictly relevant to help jurors understand the victims' behavior toward the defendant, their initial internal reports to Scientology officials, their hesitation to contact police, and the subsequent reactions of their friends and family members. Addressing claims of judicial hostility toward the faith, the panel concluded that Judge Olmedo's statements, when viewed in full context, demonstrated "no animus or departure from neutrality regarding Scientology."

Additional Evidentiary and Constitutional Challenges

Beyond the First Amendment arguments, Masterson's defense team raised nearly a dozen distinct reasons why the verdict should be reversed. These included objections to the statute of limitations, alleged delays in prosecuting one of the charges, and challenges to pretrial procedures.

The appeals panel also reviewed Judge Olmedo's decision to permit evidence showing that the victims had a pending civil lawsuit seeking damages for harassment and stalking against Masterson, the Church of Scientology, and church leader David Miscavige. Additionally, the trial court had allowed jurors to hear details regarding a prior settlement agreement between Masterson and one of the victims, J.B., including the financial payout involved. The appellate court affirmed that admitting these materials did not constitute an abuse of the trial court's discretion.

Writing in the unpublished opinion, Justice Victoria M. Chavez dismissed the defense's argument that multiple smaller trial missteps combined to deprive Masterson of due process. "Because we have found none of the claimed errors to constitute individual errors, they cannot as a group constitute cumulative error," Justice Chavez wrote, according to Bloomberg Law.

Varying coverage emerged regarding the exact scope of the court's disposition on secondary filings. While outlets such as Bloomberg Law focused primarily on the affirmance of the direct appeal, Variety Australia reported that the panel also summarily denied a separate habeas corpus petition which argued that Masterson's trial attorney, Philip Cohen, failed to provide an adequate defense—specifically regarding a late 2025 appellate claim that Cohen should have called a Scientology representative to the stand to dispute the expulsion claims.

Background on the 2023 Retrial and Sentencing

Masterson was arrested in 2020 following a multi-year investigation into allegations of sexual assault occurring between 2001 and 2003. After remaining free on $3 million bail, his first criminal trial ended in a deadlocked jury in late 2022. Prosecutors moved forward with a second trial, and on May 31, 2023, a jury convicted Masterson on two counts of forcible rape. The jury deadlocked on a third count involving a former longtime girlfriend from 2001; the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office later declined to retry that count, resulting in its dismissal.

On September 7, 2023, Judge Olmedo sentenced Masterson to the maximum term of 15 years to life for each of the two counts, ordering them to run consecutively for a total of 30 years to life, alongside lifetime registration as a sex offender upon any future release.

"Mr. Masterson, you are not the victim here," Judge Olmedo told the actor during the sentencing hearing, as recounted by The Independent. During the same hearing, Jane Doe 2 addressed the court directly, stating, "You lived your life behind a mask as two people. But the real one sits here."

What Comes Next for the Defense

Following Tuesday's setback, Masterson's appellate attorneys, Cliff Gardner and Eric Multhaup, confirmed they will take their fight to the state's highest judicial body. The legal team stated they plan to petition the California Supreme Court for review while continuing to pursue separate habeas corpus relief based on what they described to Deadline as "substantial exculpatory evidence that was never presented to the jury."

"Danny is serving a life sentence for crimes he did not commit," Gardner said in a public statement. "No one in California – not defendants and not victims who have actually been the victim of a sex crime – is safer by virtue of today's unfortunate decision."

Representatives for the Church of Scientology did not immediately respond to media requests for comment regarding the appellate court's ruling.

Sources